Imagine the following situation: It is the crucial meeting between the client and the

interior architect to negotiate the contract for a large building project. The
negotiation is almost complete. The client gets ready to sign the contract and as one
of the last points, attempts to get an agreement on the delivery date for the
preliminary design:

Client: I expect the preliminary drawings Monday after next – is that OK with you?

Interior Architect: Sure. We can get you the schematics ready by that date, and you
know you will get a professional solution that meets the state of the art expectations.
But let me make you a calculation: In the typical project of this kind, about a quarter
of our time and fee is spent on what we call ―critical design time.‖ That is where the
important design decisions are made that will determine the project’s ultimate
success – architecturally, functionally, economically. That is where our firm has
earned its reputation for bringing projects that compare favourably with other
projects. But every solution, no matter how good can still be improved; for example
with respect to economic performance. So let us assume that we could further
reduce the initial cost of your project by only 1% without reduction in the quality.

I.A.: That would be 10.000 TL off your 1 million TL project. But we would have to
spend a little more time on it – especially in the important schematic design phase.
Interested? Client: Mm.

I.A.: Would you be willing to let us spend, say, 5.000 TL more on critical design time
to achieve this? Over the delivery time of the building say a year, that would be a 2:1
ratio of savings in initial cost to the investment of the added design fee.

Client: Not bad, but...

I.A.: At a total interior architect’s fee of say, 8% for the building, which is now going
to cost 990.000 TL, that would be roughly 79.000 TL plus 5.000 TL = 84.000 TL, which
would be about an 8,5% fee. In terms of time, the added effort and cost would be
equivalent to about one month in critical design time; two weeks if we put two
people on it.

Client: Well, I don’t Know...

I.A.: There is more. If your building requires a roughly 4 million TL in operating,

maintenance, energy and other running costs, over 20 years, one more month of
critical design time could result in a 1% reduction of those costs, this would represent
a savings-to investment ratio of 8:1 (40.000:5.000). At the same terms as above
(aiming at a savings investment ratio of 2:1), you should be willing to let us spend
20.000 TL more on design time, for a total fee of around 10%. But what if we could
actually do it for about the same 5.000 TL as above, or one more designer month.
That would give you a return of 40.000 TL on an investment of 5.000 TL, which
represents an annual return in savings of 2.000 TL – that is 40% annually. Which of
your stocks gives you that kind of return?
Client: Now you are talking. How...

I.A.: Wait; it could get even better. What if we looked at your actual operation and
managed to develop a layout that would save you 1% on personnel cost over 20
years? How much do you spend per year on salaries? 50 people in that size building,
at an average annual salary of, say, 20 million TL over 20 years. One percent of that is
a savings of 200.000 TL, or 10.000 TL a year. So, still on the same deal as for the initial
cost (2:1 savings ratio), you should be willing to let us spend up to 100.000 TL more
on design costs and still make 100.000 TL in savings.

Client: Wait a minute...

I.A.: Ok, so what if we could do that for the same 5.000 TL? You would be looking at a
return of 200.000 TL on 5.000 TL investment over 20 years, or 10.000 TL each year.
That is an annual return rate of 200%.

Client: That all sound too good to be true. Can you show me what kind of things you
would do, or where have you done that in a past project? Can you guarantee the
result? Why can’t you come up with a better solution right away? Didn’t you just
argue that ―good design is just as cheap as bad design‖ when you tried to snatch the
commision away from your competitors? Besides, you forgot to consider that each
month of delay is going to cost me some 7.000 TL in interest alone...

I.A.: Well, uh, ah...

Client: Have the schematics ready Monday after next. OK?

Do we as interior architects have good, convincing answers to these questions?

 Clients, especially corporate and government clients, increasingly expect architects
to be able to answer them. As they, and their advisors, become more sophisticated in
analyzing their financial situation, they expect the interior architects to follow suit.
 They know that information as well as analytical methods and tools – computers,
programmable calculators, spreadsheet programs, data services – are increasingly
available even to the smallest firms: they expext interior architects to use them. We
are running out of excuses for not doing so...

The trouble is that we have rarely looked at our tasks that way, and that is why we
would have trouble answering the client's next-to-last question. Backed into the
comer, a common reaction on the part of some interior architects is to let the client
negotiate their commission down even further. (they do not like to talk about this)
 A number of years ago I (Thorbjoern Mann) was teaching a design class in a Far
Eastern city. The project was a large downtown office building, using the site and
program of an actual project of this kind. The architect came in to talk to the
students, who had spent the first weeks studying efficient access and service core
configurations, massing, and similar issues.
 It was amazing to watch the students' astonishment when the architect casually
mentioned that the client had had a team of five financial feasibility advisors work on
the project for many months before the architect was involved. None of the advisors
was an architect. They gave him a program with the complete service core, number
of floors, and outside dimensions worked out in considerable detail, leaving the
architect essentially to design a skin around the building.

The message was clear: The client, a major international corporation, did not seem to
have sufficient confidence in architects' ability to advise on these crucial feasibility
considerations even to make an architect part of this team.
 Was this just an isolated incident? The result of some disappointing cost overruns
in previous projects? An indication of a general attitude toward architects? A realistic
assessment of the (lack of) competence of architects? Many architects would
disagree especially with the last judgment— some no doubt quite vehemently, and
some even with good justification. But even if the client's attitude were different,
how many architects live up to the expectation of reliably carrying out such feasibility
analyses, or are competent members of teams such as the one above?

My (Thorbjoern Mann) own architectural education hardly mentioned these issues.

As a graduate entering the profession after my first degree, I would have been quite
lost had anyone asked me to estimate the cost, let alone the feasibility or financial
performance, of a building. I suspect that many graduates of schools of architecture
today, even practicing architects, are in a similar situation. It does not have to be this
way. In spite of sometimes confusing jargon, and some fierce-looking mathematical
equations, it is quite possible to grasp the basics and to make building economics just
one more of the many balls the architect has to keep juggling, and even to turn it into
an advantage.
 Architects like to see themselves as problem-solvers. The economic questions of
buildings always are a major part of the client's problem. We cannot afford to ignore
a part of the problem the client often considers is the most critical one—even if we
ourselves are more concerned with other facets such as aesthetics, user needs,
environmental response, or image. Including economic factors in our range of design
concerns will not compromise our designs; it will make us better designers. What it
takes is, first, a change of attitude.